Controlling bar stock from delivery to cellar to counter
How a bar can track stock from the delivery bay to the cellar to the counter, so that a shortage shows up in the place where it happened.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Hospitality businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A case of whisky is missing, and the month-end count catches it, but only as one number for the whole building. Was it short on the delivery? Did it leave the storeroom without anyone signing for it? Was it poured away over the counter, one generous tot at a time? With a single stock figure for the premises, nobody can say, and the conversation with staff turns into guesswork and bad feeling.
More counting is not the answer on its own. What helps is giving each place where stock sits its own record, so a gap appears in the room where it opened. This is written for bar owners and managers in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, from a hotel bar with a proper cellar to a pub with a storeroom behind the kitchen.
Three doors stock walks out of
Investopedia defines inventory shrinkage as the difference between recorded (book) inventory and actual (physical) inventory. It lists the causes as shoplifting, administrative error, employee theft, vendor fraud and broken items, among others. In a bar, those causes gather at three points:
- The back door. A delivery is signed for in full when a case was short, or a damaged case is swapped in. That is vendor fraud or simple administrative error, and it happens before a bottle reaches a shelf.
- The cellar. Stock leaves the storeroom with no record: for a function, as a "loan" to the kitchen, or into somebody's car.
- The counter. Free pours, drinks rung up and then voided, refunds with no customer behind them, and breakages nobody wrote down.
One stock figure for the building blends all three. Separate figures for the cellar and each bar pull them apart.
The cellar and each bar as their own locations
With Achekam's Warehousing add-on, a business keeps stock locations on the server, such as warehouses, stores, bins and vans, with the quantity on hand at each. For a bar the natural set-up is one location for the cellar or main store and one for each counter: the pool bar, the lounge bar, the function bar.
Physically, every delivery goes to the cellar first. A counter holds only what it has been given. Each location then has its own expected quantity, and each can be counted against it.
Stock moves upstairs only on a transfer
In the Warehousing add-on, a transfer between locations goes from draft to dispatched to received. On a busy Friday that looks like this:
- The bar manager drafts the transfer for what the lounge bar needs for the weekend.
- The cellar keeper picks the stock and marks the transfer dispatched.
- Someone at the bar checks what arrived and marks it received.
If fewer bottles reach the bar than left the cellar, the short delivery is recorded as wastage. That rule turns a bottle lost on the stairs into a recorded event with a date and a transfer behind it, rather than a mystery at month end.
Two people should touch every transfer. AccountingTools makes the same point about purchasing: the person who places stock orders should not be the one who receives or counts the goods on delivery. The logic carries inside the building. If the cellar keeper also signs for the bar, the transfer proves nothing. How to split ordering from receiving in a small team is covered in why the buyer should not receive the delivery.
Count each location and chase the gap where it shows
A stock count in the Warehousing add-on sets a location's quantity to what was counted and records the difference as an adjustment. Count the cellar and each bar separately: the counters at close of trade, the cellar before the first transfer of the day.
The adjustment is where the real work starts. AccountingTools describes investigating variances, and discussing them with the person in charge of the stock, as the most important cycle-counting activity. Read the differences by location:
| The gap appears in | Look first at |
|---|---|
| The cellar | Delivery notes against what was booked in; transfers dispatched but never received; breakages not recorded |
| One bar counter | Voids and refunds on that till; transfers received; the staff-drinks and comps policy |
| Every location alike | The count itself, such as bottles counted at one place and tots at another |
Investopedia's suggested controls for shrinkage are inventory audits, surveillance cameras, thorough vendor reviews and theft-prevention training for employees. Counts by location are the inventory audit. Cameras over the cellar door and a firm word with a supplier whose cases keep arriving light are management decisions that the location figures will tell you where to aim.
One limit to plan around
Counts, wastage and transfers change quantities, but they do not post to the general ledger. Only till sales and till returns move the inventory account. The count tells you where stock went; getting the value of a loss into the books is a separate step, usually a journal at month end that you agree with your accountant.
Supervisor-only voids and refunds at the till
A great deal of bar shrinkage happens at the till. In Achekam, the cashier is whoever is signed in, and discounts above the business's limit, refunds, voids and cash paid out need a supervisor or manager. There is no cashier PIN, so the protection rests on every bartender signing in as themselves, never on a shared login. One till login per waiter explains why that matters.
Together, the location counts and the named till users let you trace a pattern. If the lounge bar's count is short and its voids are high on the same nights, you have a specific conversation to have with a specific person, not a lecture for the whole team. The end-of-shift checks in closing the business day are where those till figures get reviewed.
A weekly routine for the bar office
- Check every delivery against its note in the cellar, and record shortages before the driver leaves.
- Move stock to the counters only by transfer, with a different person receiving it.
- Record breakages when they happen, not at the count.
- Count the counters at close and the cellar before opening, on a fixed day.
- Review the adjustments by location the same day, while memories are fresh.
- Compare voids and refunds per user on the counter with the largest gap.
Investopedia's guide to shrinkage, its causes and its controls goes further into why stock disappears and how businesses reduce it.
Start with the locations. Once the cellar and each counter carry their own stock figures, your next count will point to the door the problem is walking through.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
